It’s been a long time since I wrote an election update so there’s a lot to say. I’m going to split this one into parts. Part 1 will discuss party lists, Part 2 will talk about candidate rows and part 3 will deal eith anything else. Anyway, here’s part 1.

Party Lists

First off, most parties have their lists now. Labour‘s Primary didn’t produce many surprises, with Shelly Yachimovich coming top and Stav Shaffir doing well. General Amos Yadlin joined the list too, as their Defence Minister candidate, after Shaul Mofaz decided not to join Labour.

In the Bayit Yehudi primary, a few of Naftali Bennett’s preferred candidates didn’t come high enough to be in realistic slots. Overall, the Bayit Yehudi list has several women in realistic spots, making the relative lack on the Likud list more apparent. The primary election was mired in complaints by candidates and nearly didn’t happen after a court injunction froze the election but then the injunction itself was vacated because the complainants didn’t pay the court fee. Despite one recount, some of the lower-placed candidates are still trying to take the whole process to court citing irregularities.

Likud had its own recounts following its primary two weeks ago. Two well-known figures, MK Tzipi Hotovely and former MK Avi Dichter, were fighting over the 20th spot on the Likud list. After a recount, Ms Hotoveli took the place and Mr Dichter was moved down into an unrealistic spot. He’s now also going to court to contest the recount.

Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu added General Yoav Galant, women’s campaigner Rachel Azarya and Ethiopian journalist Tzaga Malcho to his list, which has a good gender balance and a nice array of experts. It seems like he’s doing something similar to Yesh Atid last election.

Yesh Atid hasn’t published its list yet, but David Stern MK, a Tnua MK who was left out in the cold when Tzipi Livni teamed up with Labour, has joined the party.

In Yisrael Beiteinu, many of the existing Knesset members are out – David Rotem, Uzi Landau and Yair Shamir are gone – replaced by new names, with current MK Orly Levy becoming number 2 on the list. A friend of mine, Ashley Perry, is running at number 20 so good luck to him!

There’s little change in the Meretz list, which mainly chose existing or past MKs for its top spots.

Hadash had perhaps the biggest change after Chairman Mohammed Barakeh withdrew, leaving the way clear for Aimen Odeh to become the new Chair.

Likud is the first party to complete its primary, with the results out last Friday. Benjamin Netanyahu easily won the leadership again, beating Danny Danon and surprising nobody. Gilad Erdan came first in the Likud list, with other more-moderate Likud members in the top 10 such as Silvan Shalom, Moshe Yaalon and Tzachi Hanegbi.

Some of more right-wing Likud members did much worse, with Moshe Feiglin coming low down the list in an unrealistic position for the next Knesset. The only woman in Likud’s top ten is Miri Regev, who’s one of the more right-leaning Likud MKs, while Tzipi Hotovely came down low enough to be doubtful for re-election. A lot of commentators have noted the dearth of women on the Likud list.

Mr Netanyahu has the right to add a couple of appointees to the Likud list and there’s a rumour that he’s going to hold some sort of public vote to choose them. Perhaps this will be announced at tomorrow night’s big event; Likud is holding an event in Tel Aviv on Monday night which party spinners say will be very significant.

Of course, following his defeat in the primary, there are rumours that Moshe Feiglin is considering founding a new party. I doubt he actually will, though. There were similar rumours in past primaries.

Labour announced formally that Manuel Trajtenberg would be joining their list and would be the party’s first choice for Finance Minister. This was pretty widely expected. In another piece of Labour gossip, leader Issac Herzog admitted that he’d been having voice training.

An Israeli Minister, apparently Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, was alleged to be having secret meetings with Fatah’s Mohammed Dahlan, a rival of PA President Abbas. Everyone has denied this story on all sides, so it’s probably true.

A conference last weekend in Nazareth discussed a united list between the two Arab parties and the Arab/Jewish Hadash party. Former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg even popped up, on Shabbat, wearing a kippa and claiming that a merged list was so important that he was prepared to break Shabbat to advocate for it. No decision was taken, though.

Finally, many people were surprised by reports that Channel 2 journalist Tzion Nanous had joined Bayit Yehudi. The story was reported on several websites until it became clear what had happened – Nanous had been added to the party’s WhatsApp group as a reporter, and some party members interpreted the “Tzion Nanous has joined” message incorrectly. On Twitter, Naftali Bennett joked “That’s how it started for Yigal Manon too”, referring to another journalist who recently joined the party.

Shas

Lots of drama in Shas. Last night videos of late Shas Rabbinic leader R. Ovadia Yosef attacking current leader Aryeh Deri were released to the media. In the videos, R. Yosef calls Mr Deri a thief and a bad person, says he’s too independent and claims Deri tricked Shas into supporting the Oslo peace proces.

This was a huge deal for a party whose support and legitimacy still comes largely from R. Ovadia Yosef. Yesterday, Deri resigned as Shas leader – but a few hours later the Shas Council of Torah Sages (the committee of Rabbis that theoretically runs the party) refused to accept his resignation. Today, raising the stakes, Deri also resigned as a Knesset member, immediately followed by ALL the other Shas MKs too.

This is, of course, the classic Israeli resignation-so-you-can-be-convinced-to-stay. At this point nobody expects Deri to go. The resignations from the current Knesset were symbolic only and won’t affect their running for the next Knesset. According to Haaretz, the Rabbis’ letter begging Deri to stay was written before he’d even resigned!

Perhaps most surprisingly, a poll today showed that all of this has had little impact on Shas. While Eli Yishai took a chunk of Shas’ support with him when he formed his own party two weeks ago, the only poll since the tapes’ release shows essentially no change in Shas’ already-weak position.

Likud

In Likud, the leadership and Knesset primaries will happen tomorrow. Most of the drama in Likud has been arguments over rules and courts. Basically, Benjamin Netanyahu has been un-disqualified as expected, and will be running for Likud leader against Danny Danon. Mr Netanyau will win comfortably.

In the primary itself, 70 candidates are running overall with 38 running for the 17 ‘safest’ seats. There will also be a vote to allow Mr Netanyahu to appoint some of his own hand-picked candidates to realistic list positions. This plus other reserved seat rules means that not all the 17 ‘top’ candidates will necessarily be in the first 25 places on the Likud list.

There were also reports of various dirty deals and vote-trading happening in the primary, but I don’t fully understand them. One thing that is worth mentioning is this bizarre and cringe-worthy video by Likud primary candidate Oren Hazan. His father, Yehiel Hazan was a former Likud MK who was convicted of illegally stealing the votes of MKs while they were away from their seats. The video, a Godfather pastiche, has the criminal ex-MK Hazan telling his son to run in the Likud primary for the good of the family. It’s really weird.

Kulanu

There are rumours that Kulanu’s next signing will by Jerusalem Deputy-Mayor Rachel Azaria. Ms Azaria founded the “Jerusalemites” local party and is an advocate for women’s rights, especially in issues around religion. I voted for her for city council and she’d be an interesting addition to Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu list as well as their first woman.

In an attempt to counter Mr Kahlon’s perceived support in Jerusalem, there were some reports that Netanyahu had asked Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to also serve as the Minister for Jerusalem. This report was denied, and it also is reportedly illegal for a mayor to be a government minister.

Channel 10

Channel 10, one of Israel’s terrestrial TV channels, will close tomorrow night after the Communication Minister – who happens to currently be PM Benjamin Netanyahu – didn’t agree a bailout deal. Mr Netanyahu and his wife Sarah have reportedly had his sights on Channel 10 since the channel ran critical reports about the Netanyahus’ foreign travel.

Israel only has five free-to-air Hebrew channels at the moment, and Channel 10’s news in particular is one of the best (Channel 2 is also good). The channel has been on strike, showing a picture of Mr Netanyahu and blaming him for the closure. Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni called on Mr Netanyahu to save the channel, and even President Ruvi Rivlin publicly backed a bailout. Supporters of Mr Netanyahu, though, pointed out that many of Channel 10’s supporters had no problem with the law to limit the free distribution of pro-Netanyahu newspaper Yisrael Hayom.

Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu party finally has a couple of candidates. Joining him are Michel Oren, the former Ambassador to the USA, and Eli Alalouf, an Israel Prize winner who chairs a committee on investigating poverty in Israel. They’re both serious names and solid professionals, but it’s hard to pin down the precise character of the party yet. Maybe as more people join it’ll become clearer.

Meanwhile, another Israeli Ambassador to the USA, incumbent Ron Dermer, got into trouble for endorsing Benjamin Netanyahu on an American TV show. Mr Dermer, a close friend of Mr Netanyahu, told a cable channel that

“I have no doubt that when [Israelis] look at all the people that stand for the leadership of the country, that they will have confidence in the leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu.”

Ambassadors are supposed to be politically neutral in their roles, and Mr Dermer might get into trouble with the Civil Service Commission.

More Yisrael Beiteinu-linked figures have been detained and questioned for involvement in an alleged huge corruption scandal. The latest person questioned seems to be former Jerusalem Mayoral candidate Moshe Leon, though I can’t confirm that because journalists have been hinting at it rather than outright reporting it.

A Labour Court hearing into claims by a former worker at the Prime Minister’s House, though, was postponed until after the election after Benjamin Netanyahu argued that the case could influence the polls. The ex-worker was allegedly going to reveal a lot of the private goings-on inside the Netanyahu household. Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman attacked the delay, noting that a full investigation into his party was allowed during election time but an ongoing case about Netanyahu was delayed for political reasons.

Danny Danon continued the trend of releasing ‘funny’ videos, by putting out a cartoon song set to the tune of “Oh Susanna” depicting him as an Old-West sheriff kicking out Haneen Zoabi, attacking Tzipi Livni etc. The video, called “Oh Zoabi” has been criticised by some for sexism and Zoabi herself reported it to the police as incitement. While clearly NOT incitement, I thought it was a bit crass and a little sexist. I also thought its general silliness shows Danon is not really running for Likud leader anymore, and is just trying to secure a good place in the party Primary.

Another media figure is joining the Bayit Yehudi list. Yinon Magal, editor of Walla news, has been given one of the automatic spots that are in the gift of leader Naftali Bennett. Yinon has come under immediate criticism, though, due to the increase in sexual content on Walla under his editorship, with some Bayit Yehudi members questioning his suitability as a candidate for the religious party.

Meanwhile, the polls are messy: some show Yisrael Beitenu almost disappearing while others show that the current investigation has had no impact at all. Some show both Shas and Yishai’s ‘Yachad, Ha’am Itanu’ party struggling to make threshold, while others have both comfortably in the seats. More on this later in the week.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been disqualified from the Likud leadership campaign – maybe. The party comptroller accused him of using party funds in his leadership campaign and demanded an apology or he’d face disqualification. Mr Netanyahu responded that the comptroller had no authority to disqualify him. So today, the comptroller disqualified him.Despite this, it’s almost certain that Netanyahu will find a way to remain on the Likud leadership ballot, whether it’s by appealing the decision to the internal Likud court, and eventually to the District Court, or by apologising to the Comptroller. Of course, if he apologises then perhaps he’d be attacked by Mr Never-Apologise, Naftali Bennett! It’s also worth noting that we’re past the deadline to register new parties. Anyway, watch this space while the mess is sorted out.

Yisrael Beiteinu’s Faina Kirshenbaum is one 30 people were interviewed under police caution this morning in connection with a huge embezzlement case after a year-long police investigation. The case reportedly involves getting millions of shekels of public money, via NGOs, to fund nonexistent building projects. Also under investigation are a former minister and senior officials in Government and NGOs. Yisrael Beiteinu has condemned the arrests as being politically-motivated; the party (accurately) notes that there’s been some big investigation of Yisrael Beiteinu MKs announced before every election since 1999 and that they usually come to nothing. More details will emerge in the coming days.

Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu party will hold a press conference at 16:30 today to announce something. Everyone says that the ‘something’ is that Michael Oren, historian and former Ambassador to the USA, will be running on his list. Oren’s been rumoured to be running with Kahlon for more than a year, so this announcement will surprise nobody. In fact I wonder why it’s taken so long to seal the deal. Also, the official English spelling of the party is “Koolunu” but that sounds like it’s a Pokémon.

We’re getting to the point where there are enough polls to start talking meaningfully about them, so expect some more psephological posts from me in the future, either here or on my other blog.